The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany presents a new interpretation of National Socialism, arguing that art in the Third Reich was not simply an instrument of the regime, but actually became a source of the racist politics upon which its ideology was founded. Through the myth of the “Aryan race,” a race pronounced superior because it alone creates culture, Nazism asserted art as the sole raison d’être of a regime defined by Hitler as the “dictatorship of genius.” Michaud shows the important link between the religious nature of Nazi art and the political movement, revealing that in Nazi Germany art was considered to be less a witness of history than a force capable of producing future, the actor capable of accelerating the coming of a reality immanent to art itself.
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"The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany is a provocative attempt to analyze systematically an essential characteristic of the National Socialist state, namely, the unification of art and ritual in what the author sees as 'the Nazi myth.'"—History of Religions
"...this is an intriguing book that will undoubtedly fascinate many who are interested in theories about images and their potential power."—Journal of Modern History
"[T]his well-researched and nicely illustrated book analyzes the place of art within National Socialist ideology and culture....anyone with an interest in Nazism or art history, including non-specialists, stands to benefit from reading this book."—Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d'histoire
"A good book for anyone interested in getting into the "why" of the Nazi movement."—The NYMAS Review
"A highly original work offering a wealth of new material and a radically new perspective. It could be said that this book is a highly convincing documentation of Walter Benjamin's famous statement that fascism is the aestheticisation of politics. Michaud's analysis is provocative and disquieting because it relentlessly reveals the deep interrelation of a long aesthetic and artistic tradition of the 'creative artist' and central motifs of Christianity."—Rainer Nägele, Johns Hopkins University
From the Inside Flap
The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany presents a new interpretation of National Socialism, arguing that art in the Third Reich was not simply an instrument of the regime, but actually became a source of the racist politics upon which its ideology was founded. Through the myth of the “Aryan race,” a race pronounced superior because it alone creates culture, Nazism asserted art as the sole raison d’être of a regime defined by Hitler as the “dictatorship of genius.” Michaud shows the important link between the religious nature of Nazi art and the political movement, revealing that in Nazi Germany art was considered to be less a witness of history than a force capable of producing future, the actor capable of accelerating the coming of a reality immanent to art itself.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Remarkably erudite and exceptionally well argued,
This review is from: The Cult of Art in Nazi Germany (Cultural Memory in the Present) (Paperback)
Eric Michaud's book is an erudite marvel of cultural and intellectual history. Not only does it complement and improve on existing accounts of the role of art in Nazism (particularly the tradition stemming from George L. Mosse's work), it intelligently argues for a rethinking of art's importance in the Nazi project of a new Europe-wide order.
Michaud connects art to the Christian and voelkish aspects of Nazism, as well as to the Hitler-cult and the attempt at a total mobilization and domination of society. His discussion of individual artworks, in the context of both art history and Michaud's philosophical treatment of culture helps explain the political and political pervasiveness of Nazism and brings together a number of tropes and issues that, though seemingly disparate, can now be shown as central and well-connected. The analysis of racism is original and useful; so is the discussion of Nazism's fantasy of its relationship to time and its construction of its own eternity. The review below is motivated and pointlessly unfair: Michaud's research is extremely wide-ranging and very well put together. This book will be debated by scholars for a long time and, being eminently readable, informative on every page, and well-rounded as an interpretation of the genealogy of modern European culture and the destructive power of nazism, it is worth reading several times.
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